In late 1889, the dying phrenologist and health lecturer Joseph Fraser published a manifesto outlining his blueprint for Utopia. His novel, Melbourne and Mars: My Mysterious Life on Two Planets, mimicked canonical works of late-nineteenth-century science-fiction, and drew on optimistic ‘discoveries’ of habitation on the red planet. Its action centred on a Melbourne businessman who discovers that, by a division of the soul, he has a younger alter-ego living on Mars. This parallel universe shares striking similarities with industrialised societies of Fraser’s period, although the humanoid ‘martials’ thrive in an altruistic socialist Utopia. The novel reflects Fraser’s origins and strong sense of identity as a scientist, as well as debates about Australia’s national future that infused his six years in Melbourne. Born in Britain’s textile country during the mid-1840s, Fraser grew up within the crucible of industrialisation that forged Robert Owen’s Utopian Socialism, an influence apparent in his ‘Martial’ educational model. But the work also soars with idealistic philosophies of Federation and Cosmopolitanism, and replicates prejudices surrounding racial purity. With its blind spots and inconsistencies, Melbourne and Mars – a book with galactic ambitions – becomes an ideal popular artefact for studying a moment in national design.